Ranger Union Torture
by Loveon
Summary: Isaac's sick and Melody has no one to play with. But hey, the Pokémon Rangers probably have some free time.. right?


Ranger Union Torture

Ever since the defeat of Blake Hall and Team Dim Sun, everything around Almia had been calm. No danger, no problems… Even the regular people didn't require asking the Pokémon Rangers for assistance. (And if they did, it was for a ridiculous task.)

One day, Isaac, a scientist who worked at Altru Inc., had gotten sick. His younger sister, Melody, who constantly visited him to play or talk with him, was unable to do so due to the other workers telling her that Isaac should get some rest.

Little Melody didn't have a clue on who she could play with now. (Isaac had always told her to only play with people she knows.) It was then, as she sat in the lobby of Altru Inc., that she thought of a brilliant idea.

The Rangers at the Ranger Union were people she knew. So why not go and play with them?

---

"…I am so bored," a brown haired boy said. He had a piece of hair that stuck up at the back of his head and looked oddly like a Buizel's head.

"I agree…" another boy, this one with red spiky hair, said.

"So do we," the rest of the people in the room agreed. And… it was quite a lot of people. There was a green haired woman, a black haired man with a cowboy hat, a blonde girl, two old people, a girl with brown pigtails, and several others with scientist coats on.

"HEYYY! IS ANYONE HERE?!"

"…What was that?" the red haired boy asked.

One of the old people, a man with a cane, quickly pointed at an escalator. "Keith! Hajime! I assign you a mission! Find the source of the voice!"

"Yes sir!" the two boys answered and saluted. They then ran down the escalator, which was oddly not moving at all, all the way down to the first floor. A little blonde haired girl with pigtails stood there, looking around curiously.

"…Melody, right?" Keith, who was the red haired boy, asked. "What're you doing here?"

"Big brother's sick," Melody answered.

"What?!" the other boy, Hajime, asked in surprise. "What is it? A cold? He's fine, right?"

Melody nodded. "Yeah. But I'm not allowed to play with him today so…"

Keith nodded. "I got it! I'll capture a couple of Kricketot! Their xylophone noises will entertain young munchkins like you!"

Melody got a dark look on her face; one that no one would expect to be coming from a kid her age. "NO."

"Uh… W-what?"

"I said no!" Melody whined and stomped her foot. "I wanna play with all of you! Sure, playing with Pokémon is fun, but I can't understand anything they say! And xylophones are annoying!"

Keith raised an eyebrow and looked at Hajime. "Such a demanding child."

"Okay!~ Thanks for letting me play!" Melody sang and began running up the escalator.

"Wait a sec!" Keith shouted. "We never said-"

Hajime stopped him from finishing his sentence. "There's no stopping her now," he said seriously. "Looks like we're going to have to relocate the Ranger Union… _again_."

Keith gulped. "I guess so… Hey, why were you acting so worried about hearing that Isaac was sick? You never act like that when I'm sick!"

Hajime shrugged. "I guess I assume that you scare germs away. Besides, Isaac probably eats nothing and could die just from a cold."

---

"Oh, thank you, oh dear germs that have caused Isaac to fall ill," the blonde haired Operator said, standing in a corner and talking to herself. "Now we won't die from boredom!"

"Hey Rhythmi! Quit talking to yourself or I'll have to call the hospital!" Keith shouted from across the room.

Rhythmi sighed and turned around. Melody was giving every person in the room (excluding Keith, for some reason) a hug and saying that she loved everyone. Little kids have that kind of happy affect on people when they do things like that…

"Hey, can't I have a hug?" Keith asked, going over to stand in front of Melody.

Melody shook her head. "No way! I don't hug meanies!"

"You little-!" Keith began only to be interrupted by the green haired woman.

"Good job Melody! No one's been able to describe him better!"

Keith looked at her in shock. "W-wendy?! Why would you say something like that?!"

Wendy looked away. "Maybe because… it's true?"

"It. Is. NOT!" Keith shouted.

Melody smirked to herself as she hopped over to the man with the cowboy hat. "Hey, Sven?" she asked in her sweetest voice.

"What can I do for you, Melody?" he asked, pushing up his hat slightly.

"You believe in UFOs, right?"

Sven shrugged. "Well, I guess… You never do know what's out there."

"Can you help me find a real UFO? Or an alien?"

Sven began choking on something, most likely air. Everyone looked at him as he continued coughing. Soon enough, he recovered and looked at Melody in confusion.

"…You want me to what now?"

Melody pointed up. "Let's go find a UFO!"

"Someone kill me…" Sven muttered quietly before grinning widely. "Sure! I reckon that the best time to look would be at night, right?"

Melody began clapping. "Yeah, yeah! This is so exciting!" At this she suddenly bolted down the stairs, screaming that she and Sven were going alien hunting.

"Have fun!" Keith said, waving at Sven. "Sucker."

---

When it was dark enough outside, everyone headed out on the roof of the Ranger Union to look at the stars. Or, as Melody called it… Alien hunting.

Sven sighed as he tried to set up a telescope that Professor Hastings had claimed that he had "gotten from a class reunion". Sven rolled his eyes, remembering how he had to stop himself from saying "From when, the B.C. era?"

"Sven! We need food bait! What kind of food do aliens like?"

Sven's eye began to twitch as he looked back at Melody. "Hm… I don't know… I suggest asking Hitomi and Wendy. I've heard rumors that they're aliens." Great plan! Sic her on Hitomi and Wendy.

Melody squealed happily as she skipped over to Hitomi and Wendy. "Hey, hey! What kind of food do aliens like?"

Sven sighed yet again as he finally snapped the telescope into place; at least, he hoped he had set it up correctly. For some odd reason, the instruction booklet had been soaked, causing the letters to become illegible. Although, from what he could tell from the letters that were legible, it looked like the instructions were in French…

Soon enough, everything had been set up; although what was really only needed were telescopes but Erma had insisted they set out blankets and food.

"Mission 21! Alien Hunting! BEGIN!" Melody shouted.

"What were the first 20 missions?" Keith asked, only to have his mouth covered by Hajime, Hitomi, and Rhythmi.

"Hey look!" Wendy said and looked through one of the telescopes. "If you look at that one area of stars, it looks like that birthmark on Keith's side!"

Keith hurried over to look through the telescope. "Hey, you're right… It does look like my birthmark… Hey, how do you even _know_ about that birthmark?! How do you know what it looks like!?"

Wendy looked away from him, smiling evilly. "Oh, Keith… I have my ways, you know. Eheheh…"

"I've heard that somewhere around there-" Professor Hastings began and pointed up at a certain. "Lies Pisces the Magikarp!… Or was it Pisces the Feebas?"

"It's Pisces the Fish," Rhythmi stated.

Professor Hastings looked at her in confusion. "Are you sure? Didn't they change the name about 3 years ago?"

"I don't think they change constellations' names…" Rhythmi said and hurried back inside. "I do think we have a book on that somewhere! I'll go look for it!"

"Hey, we're supposed to be looking for aliens!" Melody said. "Not stars! Aliens!"

"Well, UFOs looked a lot like stars, you know," Sven said. "If you seen one moving, it could be a UFO! Or a falling star. Could be either…"

Melody looked at him in shock. "You know what UFOs look like?! Does that mean you've seen one?!"

"Uh…" Sven began, scratching the side of his face while trying to think. "Yeah! Yeah, I have! When I was younger, um, a UFO landed in front of the Ranger School!"

Wendy spun around to look at him. "Really?! You and I were there at the same time and I never heard of that!"

Sven shook his head. "Of course you didn't hear about it… It was the principal's orders…"

"…What?" Wendy asked.

Sven sighed. "I guess… It's about time we told you…"

"Told me what?!" Wendy asked, worry and panic in her voice.

"When that UFO landed… They…"

"They what?!"

"No, no, I shouldn't tell you this…"

"TELL ME!"

"If you insist…" Sven said and sighed yet again. "Well, the aliens entered the school through the girls' dorm and they… they took you!"

Wendy screamed and covered her mouth. "You've got to be kidding me!"

Sven shook his head. "No, I'm not. But-! I, being the heroic student I was, hurried after them! When I found you, they had already opened up your head and were performing… some kind of test! I'm telling you, I almost wanted to ditch you and let the aliens continue! But no… I tricked the aliens and rescued you from them!"

Sven blinked as he realized that everyone was listening intently to his story. Well, everyone except Keith. Apparently he didn't care.

"… What about my head?" Wendy asked quietly.

"What?"

"You said they had opened up my head! How'd you close it?"

"Uh… yeah, the school nurse fixed that."

Wendy touched the side of her head. "I always wondered where that scar came from…"

A bizarre and very uncomfortable silence followed after that. This silence was broken by Rhythmi, who returned with a book that had paper and photos sticking out of it.

"I found it! I knew we had one somewhere!"

Sven sighed in relief as everyone ran over to Rhythmi to take a look at the book. He noticed that Melody was now looking through the telescope, obviously determined to find a UFO.

"See? I _told_ you it was Pisces the Fish!"

"Odd… I must be getting Alzheimer's…"

"Let's test it out and see if you do have it! What time was the final time that you went to the bathroom yesterday?"

"Let's see… Hm…"

Melody gasped. "Hey… hey guys! Look! LOOK! I think I see something!"

"WHAT?!" everyone shouted and hurried over to the telescope Melody was using.

"See? That thing right there!"

"Eh?! It… it really is one, I think!"

"This is an amazing discovery! Quick! Downstairs to phone the news reporters!"

And so everyone except for Sven ran downstairs.

Sven sighed for maybe the millionth time that day as he slowly got up and looked through the telescope.

"Hm… Is that it? No… wait…"

Sven walked to the front of the telescope to see a small dot on the telescope's lens. He used his shirt to wipe the lens and looked through the telescope again.

"Just like I thought… It was only a smudge," Sven muttered and listened to the excited voices of everyone downstairs.

"…Well, I guess I'll let them think it was a UFO," he said and walked downstairs.

Oddly enough, after that, Keith found that he had an odd scar on his stomach, something that he never remembered getting.


End file.
